Underground Railroad History Conference

The 12th Public History Conference on the Underground Railroad Movement

The Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc. researches, celebrates and preserves New York’s history in the Underground Railroad movement in its national and international context, highlighting the role of abolitionists and freedom seekers. This year’s conference will focus on the Emancipation Proclamation, Harriet Tubman and the March on Washington.

Milestones on the Road to Freedom: The Emancipation Proclamation, Harriet Tubman, and the March on Washington – a Legacy and a Future

Congressman Paul D. Tonko will introduce Conference keynote speaker, Colia Clark, a long-time freedom movement activist, and participant in many of the major battles of the Southern Civil Rights Movement between 1960 and 1966, who will be speaking on The Southern Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s and the Legacy of the Underground Railroad.

Colia Clark was a leader of the youthful, militant wing of the 1960s Southern Civil Rights Movement in the most terroristic homelands of Jim Crow in Mississippi and Alabama. She worked closely with famous leaders like Medgar Evers, Robert Moses, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fannie Lou Hammer – and with thousands of African American and White activists who challenged segregation. A life-long activist, she continues to be involved in a wide range of progressive and antiracist social causes, and was, in the 1990s, a prominent figure on social justice struggles of the Capital Region.

The 9th Annual Underground Railroad History Conference
Gender, Class, Race and Ethnicity in Abolitionism on the Underground Railroad and in the Struggle Since
Hosted at Russell Sage College, Feb. 26-28, 2010